


my heart bursts like a bottle of wine

by aetherae



Category: Tales of Xillia
Genre: F/F, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-27
Updated: 2016-12-27
Packaged: 2018-09-12 16:01:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,315
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9079639
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aetherae/pseuds/aetherae
Summary: And Leia thought crushes were bad.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Misty_Reeyus](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Misty_Reeyus/gifts).



> tfw you write something you have no experience with and probably don’t remember the canon well enough to write but say WHO CARES IT’LL BE WORTH IT IF IT PAYS OFF because that’s what this is. my birthday fic for mist from earlier this year! in the end it's still not cute and happy like bday fic should be LMAO but well... there's always next year!!

The first time Leia sees Milla Maxwell, she thinks she must be the most beautiful person in the world.

Even with being given a piggy-back ride from Jude, Milla Maxwell is gorgeous. She fumbles her way through an introduction, thinking the woman’s eyes are the prettiest shade of red, until she realizes just _why_ a grown woman is being given a piggy-back ride from softest, kindest fifteen-year-old boy she knows. Leia all but ushers her into the wheelchair, pushing it through the seahaven towards Leronde proper before Jude even has a chance to explain.

She pushes her in the wheelchair again later through the Felgaia Mines, only ever stopping to fight off monsters with Jude or break through rocks. He tries to keep his calm as he leads them, voice steady and face composed, but Leia’s known him her whole life, knows him too well to not see the subtle shake of his hands, the way his brow furrows ever so slightly the further they head into the mine without any sight of a spirit fossil. He’s scared.

Not of the mine or the monsters, but of what will happen if they don’t find any spirit fossils. If he can’t help Milla.

From the way Milla watches him, head tilted and face expressionless save for her eyes wide in curiosity, she thinks she can see it too.

His worry turns out to be for nothing though, and her awe shifts from Milla’s beauty to her bravery when she crawls out of her wheelchair to slam the spirit fossil into its casing, gritting through pain and anguish just to wield her sword to defend them. By the time the monster’s felled, Milla pants from not just the physical exertion of the fight, but also from the continuous, torturous aid of the aspyrixis. Even then she continues to stand tall and proud, her long blonde hair hanging down her back like a beacon of light.

In that moment, Leia thinks she understands why Jude chose to follow her, turned his back on everything he knew to live as a wanted criminal if it meant following Milla.

She understands all too well.

●

“Your strength really inspired me back at the mine. I thought to myself: I want to be just like you!”

It’s not a lie. She feels pathetic as a nurse now, but she’s never felt more driven and more capable than when she was helping Milla back in the mine, not even when she’d be working with a patient or helping Dr. Mathis in the clinic. The two can’t compare to the way her heart pounded, her blood surged as she fought side-by-side with Milla and Jude and felt all the way in her marrow, _This is where I should be_.

“I filled this scrap of people with all kinds of reasons. Take a look.”

That’s not a lie either. There’re at least a hundred reasons to come along scribbled onto the paper, all of them pertaining to Jude in some way or another, and she means every single one. She wouldn’t be able to stand it if Jude got hurt, or Jude got arrested, or if something bad happened to Jude. It had been easy to fill the paper though, and she knows that if she’d had any more, she’d have at least twice the amount of reasons to join them. Telling Jude herself might be hard, too impossible to even think about honestly, but it’s—easy. Telling Milla.

She laughs easily when Milla compliments her in that very odd, very _Milla_ way, as if being “very human” is a novelty rather than simply what she is, but it makes something flutter in her stomach all the same. It reminds her a lot of the feeling she had whenever Jude would go out of his way to visit her when she was bedridden, too weak and useless on her own to even play outside.

Milla smiles at her and laughs kindly, and Leia thinks her heart beats just a little harder than before.

No, there’s another reason she’s come along. But that’s a reason she keeps secret.

●

Jude never tells her, but she never expected him to in the first place. That’s just the way Jude is—quiet, thoughtful, too easily caught up in his own head.

He doesn’t have to anyways. She’s sure everyone around them notices, Milla included. What the Lord of Spirit herself thinks of it, she has no idea, but for all her lack of understanding when it comes to humans, Leia’s pretty sure there’s only one way to interpret the way Jude’s eyes follow her, how he lights up when she smiles at him. It’s endearing in a way she never thought possible, something she never really thought she’d see in Jude of all people. After all, despite being childhood friends, this is new to her too—she’s never seen Jude like this before.

It makes her heart ache. All her life, she’s never wanted anything more than to be a strength for him. She wants to help him, to be able to support him, to inspire him like he inspired her when she didn’t think she could bear the pain of going through her physical therapy again. It’s too much for her to ever be able to repay, but if she could give him back just a little of what he gave her, she’d be happy with just that.

She can’t though. She wouldn’t be able to even if she tried. She sees the way Jude smiles at Milla and knows that she’s never been able to get him to smile like that for her, _because_ of her.

From the bottom of her heart, she knows it’s an unrequited love. She just wishes things ended as simply as that.

Because as much as she wishes Jude would look at her like that, starstruck and hopelessly in love, she wishes _Milla_ would look at her the way she looks at Jude just as much. The Lord of Spirits finds people fascinating as a whole, but whether it’s love or not, whether Milla even knows or not, the way she looks at Jude is different than the way she looks at the rest of them. When Jude talks to her or is simply even near her, chatting easily over dinner or simply sitting in content silence around their campfire, Milla always looks the same when her gaze settles on Jude. Intrigued and hopelessly fond, hopelessly _grateful_ , so utterly thankful that she is who he chooses to spend his time with. As much as Milla likes all of them, she knows for a fact that she’s never looked at her like that.

It makes something coil around her heart, but not because she begrudges them for the way they make the other feel. If anything, she’s _glad_ for that; she’d do whatever it took for Jude to look as lively as he does when he’s with Milla, and she loves seeing Milla so light-hearted and at ease the way she only ever is when Jude’s around.

No, it’s not that it’s _just_ an unrequited love. It’s _two_ unrequited loves, it’s hoping against hope that they’d look at her the way they look at each other and knowing for a fact that it will never, _could_ never happen.

Later, when she sees the two of them off to the side, talking and laughing and beaming at each other, she can’t help the pang of envy in her heart. What she can’t tell though is who she envies more—Milla for being able to stand beside Jude like that, or Jude for being able to stand beside Milla like that.

She clenches her hands by her side and turns around. It’s not something she needs an answer to.

Them together, grinning and at ease, and her by herself, happy but longing—it’s answer enough.


End file.
